Jumat, 04 Maret 2011

Busier than a one armed paper hanger

Anyone who knows me knows that I have to keep busy doing SOMEthing, ANYthing or I’ll go nuts.

This often means doing multiple things at the same time so that I don’t get bored . . . for example I can’t just sit and watch television. I have to be doing something else at the same time . . . like knitting or word puzzles or whatever.

I’ve been the same what since I was a kid. Probably a case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) before there was ever such a thing.

Anyhoo . . . in order to keep my mind occupied as a kid I would use my imagination to conjure all manner of things to keep myself amused.

One day I got it into my head to make candles. Did I have even the slightest clue as to how to make candles? Not even an inkling. Did I bother to make any sort of effort to find out how? What? Are you nuts?? Of course not! Would it have made a difference in the outcome? You bet your sweet bippy it would have!

Picture an adorable little girl seated at the dining room table . . . not the everyday ordinary kitchen table . . . the dining room table. Before her she had arranged innocuous items such as crayons and a foil pan and other less than safe materials like matches and lighter fluid.

It seemed logical that the first step should be to melt the wax . . . er . . . crayons into the pan. Holding a match to the crayon to melt it took way more time and consumed far more patience than was available. This is where the lighter fluid came in to play. One would think that melting all of the crayons at once would be far more efficient than the drip, drip, drip of melting them one at a time . . . especially since the wax had a tendency to solidify between drips. The solution, of course, was to add all the crayons to the pan and douse them in lighter fluid. Touch that concoction with a match and . . . .

FLOOMPH . . . fire. Fire in the pan would have contained the mess but accidentally tipping over the pan you end up with fire on the table. Picture colorful melted wax spreading across the dining room table, dripping off the table and into a pile shag carpet . . . all the while still on fire.

Talk about freaked out?? That was one terrified little kid. But not so scared that she was shocked into inaction. Heavens to Betsy, no! The Wrath of Mom was very close to the forefront of her no-longer-bored consciousness.

Thankfully nothing actually caught fire and the lighter fluid burned itself out in short order. Unfortunately, there was a table covered in now hardened wax and a carpet matted with the stuff. And . . . very little time to clean it up before the fury that was mother came home and found her out.

So, the little girl scraped at the wax as carefully as she could to remove the wax but not scratch the table’s surface. She managed to get most of it and miraculously not mark the table. Sorry to say that there were stains left behind that she couldn’t get off . . . they were vague and shadow-like splotches. Maybe no one would notice.

The carpet was another matter entirely. It was her good fortune that the carpet was one of those heinous multi-colored high plush shaggy carpets that were so popular when she was a kid. She did her best to snip away as much of the wax as she could without making bare patches in the rug. And she did I pretty darn good job of it too, if I do say so myself. The only way you could really tell that there was something amiss was if you stepped on it barefooted.

It’s nothing short of a miracle that the whole house didn’t burn down and that she didn’t get hurt.

Overall the clean-up was remarkable . . . no one ever knew . . . well, not up until now.